Pepper
by Arnica
Summary: The crew of Hogworts is contemplating the end of another year, and their lives


  
  
Cinnamin and sugary  
Like softly spoken lies  
You never know just how you look  
Through other people's eyes.  
  
  
Harry looked around the emptying chamber. The year was almost over. Just four more days until he went from Harry Potter, young wizard hero and Gryffindor Quidditch champion to Harry, the peice of shit locked in the room upstairs. Three long months faced him, mocking him, and laughing in his face. Three months which would see his belongings locked in the cupboard he once called home. Three months of abuse, physical and mental, just as much as he could take. The sixteen year old sighed, longingly casting his gaze out the high window. Suddenly the urge to jump was amazingly overpowering. Although he had grown tall and put on a bit of muscle, Harry was as lanky as ever and would fit through the window without too much trouble.  
" Harry, what are you doing? You should be packing." He spun with a start, looking at Ron in amazement and then back to his window, forcing a smile on his face as his eyes resumed taking in the last sights of Hogswarts for the year. Perhaps next time.  
  
  
They were all in love with dyin'  
They were drinking from a fountain  
That was pourin' like an avalanche  
comin' down the mountain.  
  
  
Draco Malfory looked down at the package that had landed before him at the breakfast table. His parents had sent him something else.  
  
" Draco, what is it?" Crabbe asked intrestedly, slurping down the rest of his food. The blond youth sighed and did what he had hoped to aviod doing at all. He opened the letter and package from his parents.  
' Draco Darling,   
We've just returned from Austria, and are heading off to deal with a problem with your father's people in the South seas. Do be a dear and see if it would be possiable to stay at school during the break, won't you? I worry when I think about you staying at home alone being only fifteen...' Without a sound, Draco crumpled the letter in his hands.  
" Seventeen." He whispered. Goyle looked at him oddly.  
" What?" Shaking his head, Draco resumed his cold composure.  
" Nothing." His light eyes grew icey. " Nothing at all. I have to finish packing, I'll see you two later." Rising, he barely heard the grunts of acknowlagement as he left the room, hurring to his dorm room and collapsing in a heap. Calmly, he took a razor blade from beneath the mattress and rolled up the sleeve of his long black sweater, exposing several almost invisable lines. Lightly he toyed with the sharp peice of metal, running it over the blue veins in his wrist before laughing slightly. " No, they'd probally put my age in the obituatary incorrectly." Humming slightly to himself, Draco walked the blade up his arm and began to run it back and forth, staring at the hypnotic red lines as they appeared on his flesh.  
  
  
They were all in love with dyin'  
They were drinking from a fountain  
That was pourin' like an avalanche comin' down the mountain.  
  
  
Ron stared at himself in the mirror. Red hair, brown eyes, and freckles. Just like every other kid in the family. He'd tried a million diffrent things just this year to seperate himself. Hermoine had helped him change his hair color magicly, but his mother had sent him a howler, demanding it be put back. The same had happened when he tried his eyes, and so he spent another year, just one more Weasly among half a dozen more.   
  
They had reinstated a teacher who had been there when Charlie had been a fifth year, and all year he had been called Charles. Even his mother had gotten mixed up in the holiday rush this year and sent his the wrong gift.   
  
For awhile, some where out there, Charlie had been wearing a maroon sweater.  
" I'm not Bil, or Charlie, or Percy, or Fred, or George." He told the mirror slowly. " I'm Ron. I'm diffrent." The mirror in the boys room snorted rudely.   
" Yeah, you're real special. You and everyone else just like you kid. Trust me, the only way people notice kids like you, is when they're gone."  
" Wank off you... you lying remains of a beer glass!" The youth shouted, drawing back his fist and smashing the glass. Staring blankly down at the bloodied splinters of glass, Ron picked up the bigest peice and put it in his pocket.  
" Hey! What happened to the mirror?!" Ron turned to see Colin Creevy standing in the men's room doorway in confusion.  
' See what I mean kid?' The shard whispered. ' Only when you're gone.'  
  
  
They were all in love with dyin'  
They were drinking from a fountain  
That was pourin' like an avalanche comin' down the mountain.  
  
  
Hermoine looked at her report card. There was no thrill in it. It was always the same. 'A' here, 'A' there, a genius no matter how you hold the tiny peice of paper.  
  
Unless you didn't hold it at all. Slowly she brought her fingers up to her trembling lips, trying to hold in the sob that rose in her throat. Dumbledoor wanted her to consider skipping her last two years at Hogswart and begin attending a top level wizarding college due to her test scores on her OWLS and stunning marks in class. Everyone had spoken of how well she did in class. Almost as if she didn't exist outside the classroom at all. Huddling up on her bed, Hermoine reached in her bag and took out an ornage bottle, shaking out a handfull of pills for the on comming headache she felt. Her eyes lingered on them temptingly before she shook her head and poured all but one back, swallowing it.  
  
  
They were all in love with dyin'  
They were drinking from a fountain  
That was pourin' like an avalanche comin' down the mountain.  
  
  
Dumbledoor stood beside his staff, staring out at where the students were piling into coaches to begin their ride home. He sighed contentedly.  
" Another year over, another group of students still alive." He laughed. " And what a nice group." In the background his ears picked up on Severus' mutterings. " Yes Severus, even our old fifth years. Probally the nicest group we've had in a while. So well adjusted, no matter what gets thrown at them." Albus Dumbledoor stared at the departing coaches. " Yes indeed."  
  
  
  
Cinnamin and sugary  
Like softly spoken lies  
You never know just how you look  
Through other people's eyes.  
  



End file.
